Category Archives: Two minute read

Oct 22 2011
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Two minute read

Autumn: It’s a Meteorological Miracle!

The sun used to be evil. Now it’s just unfriendly.

A “season,” according to Wikipedia, is “a division of the year, marked by changes in weather, ecology, and hours of daylight” that results from “the yearly revolution of the Earth.” What Wikipedia doesn’t say is that seasons, despite occurring yearly with little variation, are miraculous. There’s a quote by someone I can’t remember that goes something like this, “The winter is cold, and the summer is hot. Every year this news hits the people of Britain like a thunderbolt.”

I’ve never heard anything more true. While growing up corn-fed in Oklahoma, I was accustomed to knowing what season we were in from the headlines on the front page of The Daily Oklahoman: “It’s Cold Outside”  for the winter or “It Sure is Hot Out There” for the summer,” and I used to mock this bizarre culture of weather fascination. Couldn’t they see it was always the same? But after traveling 1/3 of the way across the world, I have become one of the shell-shocked masses. Something has happened that I didn’t dare to believe would come to pass: the weather here is cooling down.

This change in weather is a subject of daily wonder for me. It’s as if I’ve never experienced the changing of the seasons before or undergone a full rotation on this earth. Maybe I’m undergoing a radical paradigm shift from viewing Cairo as a place that is always hot and unbearable to a place that is somewhat cool and semi-bearable.

Whatever the reason, I can’t stop talking about it. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: this weather is awesome. Right now it’s 75 degrees, I’m wearing a long sleeve shirt, sweatpants, a scarf, and loving life. I even have goosebumps right now, and they’re not because of extreme dehydration, heat stroke, or a food-poisoning induced fever.

If I’ve seen you within the last three weeks, odds are I’ve exclaimed something mundane like, “This weather is soooo nice!” or “This weather is soooo beautiful!” or “I love this weather!”  I may have even said all of them. And I’ve seen you more than once, I’ve probably said the same thing to you again without shame, even remembering perfectly well that we had talked exclusively about the weather the last time we spoke.

The reality is that I will continue to talk about the weather as if it were an interesting subject, even though I know it is not. But the fact I no longer want to throw myself under the nearest moving vehicle when I’m in the sun is a miracle, pure and simple. Last week, I lounged in full reach of the sun’s rays and napped. Had I tried doing that a month ago, all that would have been left of me after fifteen minutes would be a puddle of pinkish goo and a Pilot Precise V5 pen. The times are a changing and it’s wonderful! Let the news ring from every building top, balcony, minaret and steeple: AUTUMN IS HERE!  AND I’M GOING TO TALK ABOUT IT!

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Oct 19 2011
2 Comments
Anecdotes, Stories, Two minute read

My Boring Life part 27: Hit by a Car

These are cars. Something like one of them hit me.

The first thing I thought after the car hit me was that the experience would make a great blog post, not realizing at the time how boring stories about accidental car-human interactions could be.  I found out later on that even thinking about what had happened was incredibly tedious, let alone telling the story to other people. Despite my initial hope, a non-fatal or non-injury car accident seems as normal as snack time at soccer practice.

The whole ordeal felt as uninteresting as a conversation with a drive-thru window employee: I and my colleague were walking in the street along with the rest of Cairo. He asks me how I exercise. I tell him I don’t. The car hits me from behind at a fairly slow pace, ramming roughly into my left side. My colleague accidentally gropes me as he yanks me out of the way. I let off a stream of unsavory speech and pronounce fanatical threats (at the car, not him). And then I descend into the metro station and meet a nice family from Kansas before heading home, right as rain.

Not only is the story itself banal, but it’s difficult for people to comprehend it since oftentimes (as in the two times I’ve told people), there is no shared background with regard to close encounters of the vehicular kind. For example, when you’re telling a story about a time you got a sandwich, there is a ready-made paradigm for understanding the experience. It’s likely your audience has a background in sandwich eating and can ask informed questions like: What kind of sandwich did you get? How much did it cost? Was it good? And then they might make a statement like, “Ooo…that sounds good. I should try that sometime.”

However, when you tell someone you were hit by a car, the same lexicon of understanding just does not exist. Though people want to care, they simply don’t. This is especially true if you weren’t hurt. The first question is “Are you okay?” and if you the answer is yes, then they’ve likely lost what little interest they were feigning in the first place. They might ask, “How did it happen?” but if you’re okay, than it’s probably a boring story anyways and so you’ll get a statement indicating you were slightly in the wrong, like “Be careful!” Also, the idea the person they’re talking to was in such a foreign situation and could have either been maimed or killed only hours earlier is weird and causes uncomfortable thinking about death and the meaning of life. Therefore, for everyone’s sake, it’s best to stick to talking about things people understand, like food, love, and laughter. Car accidents should be discussed only when involving circus animals or family members you thought were dead.

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Oct 17 2011
3 Comments
Best blog posts, Fiction, Humorous, Two minute read, Wedding

Say Yes to the Toothpaste!

“the one” was still being shipped

The search has finally ended. Today I found “the one”—the one toothpaste that fits me perfectly, embodies my personality, and makes me look better than everyone else. It’s a little out of my budget range, but I think we all can agree that no price is too high when you find the paste that takes your breath away. I’ve known people who have taken out second mortgages, sold vehicles, and rented out less-favorite children’s rooms to strangers just in order to afford the perfect paste. Personally, I dropped out my fellowship program in order to give this search the time and focus it deserves, and my efforts have not gone unrewarded.

I started with the go-to Crest®, Colgate®, and Aquafresh® collections. I was particularly interested in seeing what Crest® Tartar Control Whitening Plus Scope® Liquid Gel Toothpaste would do for my gum color, and I wasn’t disappointed. After a quick brushing, my gums felt as taut and healthy as a well tuned guitar string. The Aquafresh® number was also a strong competitor with its new Extreme Clean® toothpaste with Micro-Active Foaming Action and Whitening, a product developed in part by NASA. But even though the Extreme Clean® looked and fit wonderfully, it just didn’t feel like “me.” So then I tried on Colgate Total®: Enamel Strength toothpaste that also has 12 hour germ fighting protection. After brushing only once with the Colgate®, I bit through a kitchen table.  I had never felt so powerful. My friends and family also thought Colgate® was a good fit for me, but even so, I still yearned for something else.

When was at my hairdresser’s getting my bangs redone and and talking about my search for “the one,” he asked me if I’d ever tried Sensodyne®.  “It’s America’s #1 desensitizing toothpaste” he said, and “It’s been taking the feeling out of people’s teeth for over 4 decades.”“Wow.” I said. “I had no idea.”

I left straightaway and went to CVS. Standing in the oral care aisle of the drugstore, I felt a calm descend over me as I picked up what I knew would be the last brand of toothpaste I would ever squeeze onto the soft bristles of my toothbrush: Sensodyne® Extra Whitening: Maximum Strength with Fluoride. I headed for the checkout with my prize, grinning like a convict with a secret. The cashier said I’d picked out a nice toothpaste and I knew he was right. This was “the one.”

When I tried on the toothpaste at home, it felt as though it and I were one soul, long separated but at last rejoined. I took pictures of myself brushing my teeth and sent them to my entire family and posted them on facebook so everyone could know just how beautiful my teeth were going to be. The flood of comments and support was overwhelming.

All I can say is that I’m incredibly thankful to have a group of people in my life willing to stick with me and give me honest feedback throughout this process. I refuse to stop now that I’ve found “the one” toothpaste, and will continue similar searches for “the one” toilet paper and “the one” deodorant, and very soon my life will be perfect.

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Oct 16 2011
2 Comments
Anecdotes, Serious-ish, Stories, Two minute read

Snotting Colors

Post-color festival. Other people didn’t look so zombie like.

Get into a cab. Make your way out of the city. Creep through traffic, past dust colored high rises and the artificial billboards that appear like fungus sprouting out of urban decay. Countless anonymous storefronts whizz by. Mosques, churches, and government buildings hunch near the highway.

Soon you’re in the new part of Cairo, the one only rich people can afford to reach—a land built on the pretext of endless land and resources, a place made for cars and conspicuous consumption. Welcome to “My City,” a satellite community where one apartment costs a king’s ransom. This “city” sprouted up from the desert when someone watered the sands. There is grass here, and fountains. Though many of the hundreds of apartment buildings lie vacant or unfinished, you can here the whispered dream of escapism.

Wind your way through the eerily verdant complex. Find the sporting club. Get your ticket. Go through the outer gates. Push your way through masses of girls in the 2 stall bathroom to change your clothes. Enter the inner gates. Get two packets of powdered neon paint. Forget everything.

You’re on a green lawn now that buzzes with hundreds of wealthy Cairene youth, all in various stages of succumbing to neon colors. Cairo is somewhere else, along with its social problems. Now is the time to enjoy the mild autumn weather and frolic and dance around on a live green canvas writhing with youth coating themselves in a thick layer of imagination.

As you become your neon self, your old life seems so earth toned, so depressing. Why not stay here forever, where people can afford to buy bottled water at twice its normal price just to mix it with paint and spray it at people? The dj’s beats make the air pulsate and there are moments you think you might dissolve into the ether along with the paint splattered masses around you.

But then you realize that you’re starving, and the only place to eat at this freaking festival is one sandwich shack that sells exorbitantly overpriced, mediocre fare. You’re at the mercy of your hosts, and you must try to forget your own hunger until they are hungry. The mixed paint in the water bottles starts looking like delicious neon food. “Where am I?” you wonder, as you absentmindedly go for a taste.

It’s disgusting. You try it a second time but you definitely don’t do it again after that. Soon your initial wonder at this event is replaced by seething rage at the injustice of it all. “THIS MUST BE STOPPED. EQUALITY! FOOD FOR ALL!” you think as the music continues in spite of your internal objections.

Finally, hosts get hungry and it turns out they brought some sandwiches out in the car.  After inhaling one, the injustice of it all seems more bearable. You go back and enjoy your time, and then eventually leave the land of color on a long journey home, back to a world of grey covered in night.

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Oct 10 2011
2 Comments
Serious-ish, Two minute read

P.S. I’m Still Alive

Like the situation in Egypt, this puddle stinks

Look, I hate to be a Debbie Downer, but things don’t seem so great here in Egypt, and I’m not talking about the disgusting puddle outside of AUC’s Tahrir campus.

Even as we were all doing cartwheels and singing “ding dong the witch is dead” after Mubarak’s departure in February, some questions lingered in the background like “What next?” and “How difficult could it be to set up a democracy in a country crippled by poverty, corruption, and decades of political stagnation under the rule of dictators?” Turns out it’s pretty difficult, especially since it seems the egg of democracy has been shoved into an iron safe guarded by the general of the armed forces of the chicken coop for “security purposes.” Iron safes aren’t good places for eggs.

We already knew that the economy was going down the tubes, people were still hungry, and the political transition was moving slower than cool molasses. And then you have Sunday, October 9, 2011. There are conflicting reports of what exactly transpired (obviously), but basically, Christian protesters in Cairo were attacked by thugs of some kind and then the army stomped in with its big ol sticks and started putting down the demonstration violently: 26 dead and over 300 injured–the worst case of violence since the winter revolution and a painful indictment of the current political situation and its major players.

How do we feel about this? Not great. Though I am merely an Arabic student here for a short time, I find it incredibly disturbing and disappointing to see this kind of violence. Frankly, it makes me want to vomit when I think about the ploys the Supreme Council of Armed Forces is using to stay in power: sectarian strife, the fear of chaos, the promise of security even while it attacks citizens protesting peacefully. Is it not disgusting? But what can anyone do about it? What’s the alternative? People are tired of revolution and disillusioned about the future….why couldn’t prosperous democracy just happen? Why can’t it be like Idahoan instant mashed potatoes that fluff up into a delicious side dish within seconds?

And as if the violence itself wasn’t enough, state television got creative and its portrayal of the events differed significantly from what other independent channels like Al-Jazeera were broadcasting. Sounds like someone read Mubarak’s diary: “Today, I told the people at TV to just make it all up. Go crazy! Use your imagination! Make me look awesome!” And also the army attacked the building of an independent TV station (Al-Hurra).

So….it’s hard to say what’s going to happen in the coming weeks, but I hope people get angry,  forget their revolution fatigue, keep on fighting the fight. If you have any suggestions for how they should do that please direct them to peopleofegypt@yahoo.com since I’ll be too busy in class to do anything really.

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